


Maybe at Midnight

by drgknyte



Category: Magisterium Series - Holly Black & Cassandra Clare
Genre: hmmmm just a teeny wincy bit of calron?, idk man, if you squint hard enough - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 20:07:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5178008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drgknyte/pseuds/drgknyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Magisterium isn't exactly rebel-free, if secret Halloween parties are to be considered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe at Midnight

**Author's Note:**

> Yooo so idk i wrote this a few days ago bc i refuse to believe the apprentices at the magisterium don't hold secret parties i headcanon it so hard. Anw, this was beta-read by the lovely @magisteriumm from tumblr! :) Biggest thanks!

They find out by accident in their Bronze Year.

They’ve just gone through a mission outside the Magisterium, a week-long hunter-and-hunted sort of chase through the jungles of society and desolate ruins farflung from civilization, and the sudden withdrawal of adrenaline is taking its toll.

Sluggishly, faces smudgedi with dirt and sweat and their clothes strewn with bits of twigs, Call, Tamara, Aaron and Jasper enter the mission gate and wind through the underground paths. Havoc is the only one of them who seems remotely perky, sniffing at the ground and leading the way.

Jasper is being insufferable, as per usual, looking back and shooting scathing looks (a ridiculous feat, really, considering his singed eyebrow) at Call who has fallen behind the group “Fire, Call? Against an earth elemental? Really?”

“Zip it, Jasper,” snaps Tamara, although the bite in her words is cushioned by the weariness in it. Call casts her a look. She’s trying to keep it together, scowling at the mica floors unraveling before them, but it’s obvious from the disarray of her usually tidied hair and the slump of her shoulders that the journey has frayed her mentally and physically as well. “We’re lucky he bought us time like he did, or we’d be crushed meat right now.”

“But he could have killed me!” Jasper reasons. “Just an inch closer and he could have fried my face!”

“Well he didn’t,” Aaron says from beside Call. Then, under his breath, he adds, “Unfortunately for us.”

“I heard that!”

Call snickers, and Aaron grins at him. His blond hair is tinged black and gray from the drizzle of ash earlier, a dark smudge running down from his cheek to his neck, and a layer of sweat glistens just above his upper lip. He looks just as disheveled as all of them but somehow manages to look elegant and confident despite of it - which annoys Call a bit. He looks away.

On his part, Call doesn’t say anything in response to Jasper’s accusations, partly because he wouldn’t feel too bad if the kid lost an eyebrow or two, but mostly because he’s just trying to walk while keeping himself upright. He’s hungry and he’s tired, okay. Craves food like he craves relief from the stupid, pulsing pain in his leg.

“Next time an elemental attacks, I’ll make sure to knock you out myself, Call,” Jasper spits, unstoppable. “You’re a hazard in and of yourself. I’m surprised you haven’t killed yourself off with sheer stupidity yet.”

Call sighs. He really wishes Tamara would take the air out of his lungs again - just for a few seconds or so.

“Hey,” Aaron says, elbowing him, voice quiet.

Call raises an eyebrow at him. “Hey?”

“Don’t let Jasper bother you. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Call doesn’t have the heart to admit that he’s really just starving. There might be food in their commonroom, but it’s a possibility he could only hope for, especially since the elemental had gotten in the way of them informing Master Rufus of their arrival.

Call feels his stomach coil. Violently. Ugh.

“Thanks,” he says to Aaron. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Aaron is opening his mouth when Havoc’s bark cuts through their conversation, ringing loudly in the cavernous space. Call turns to look just in time to see Havoc’s tail disappearing around a corner.

“Havoc!” Call pushes past Tamara and Jasper and runs as fast as his legs would allow. “Wrong way! Come back!”

“Call, wait up!” Tamara is on his side, and then Aaron.

Somewhere behind them, Jasper shouts, “Alright, I’m done! If you guys want to run off the halls to find that mutt rather than sleep, then by all means, go! I’m tired.”

“Why did he just run off? Did he see something?” Tamara says as Jasper disappears into the opposite hallway.

“I don’t know,” Call says. He feels dreadful, thinking of the fire-consumed mage they’d encountered in their Iron Year. Thinking of other elementals that might ambush Havoc at every turn. The Magisterium isn’t known for its slick-clean safety.

“He probably just saw a rat or something,” Aaron supplies, but even his voice is tinged with doubt. They all know Havoc listens to Call unless some sort of danger is involved.

“Maybe. Which way did he go?” The words spill from his lips the same moment Havoc materializes from the gloom of the halls, barking at them, and then running off again.

“He’s trying to lead us somewhere,” says Tamara.

They turn at three more corridors until they find Havoc scratching at the wall with his forepaws, whimpering.

“What’s behind that?” Call asks as Tamara presses her ears against the granite stone. “Can you hear anything?”

“There’s some sort of sound coming through, but I can’t tell what.” Tamara nibbles on her bottom lip. “It’s probably like one of those walls that we can walk through if we use magic.”

“Stand back,” Aaron says. They’ve gone through so much together that their mind immediately registers what he really means - _stand guard, magic at the ready, we’re going to kick ass._

Call and Tamara move away, Havoc bounding off but not seeming all that alert - and Aaron held out his hand. The wall falls away into thin air.

Call feels his mouth open in silent awe.

Whatever it was they were expecting, it wasn’t rolls of tissue paper dangling from the ceiling, levitating jack-o-lanterns glowing bright greens and blues, and two long tables filled with food - pizza boxes and pastas and bowls of candies and punch. Oh, yeah, and dancing people. In costumes.

The music stops a split second after the wall goes transparent, though, and every head turns to look at them. With a start, Call registers that some of the faces are familiar. Silver and Gold Year students.

“Um,” he starts. His cheeks burn under their heavy, face-painted scrutiny. “Why are you all here?”

Alex, in a ridiculous Peter Pan costume, emerges from the crowd and all but shoves them inside, the wall solidifying behind them. “Fire up the music!” he calls out.

In front of the large, gloomy room, atop a short stone platform, a girl dressed in an elaborate midnight-blue gown with a guitar strapped around her body strums, and the sound reverberates through the air, bouncing inside Call’s chest. _Woah_.

Just like that people unfreeze and start dancing as the drummers and the vocalist start to weave a pleasantly cooling song on the background. Perfect for, what - Halloween?  
  
“What is this?” Tamara demands, just as befuddled and awed as Call.

“It’s cool!” Aaron adds gleefully. “Like, really, really cool! I didn’t even know the school had Halloween parties!”

Alex grins with mischief in his eyes. The Peter Pan costume suits him. “It doesn’t. The Masters don’t know we hold these a few days after Halloween,” he explains. “And so do you, supposedly. At least until your step into Silver Year.”  
  
“What?” Aaron asks. “So we could get in trouble for this?”

“Not if nobody finds out.” Alex winks at him.

“I can’t believe my sister didn’t tell me you had these,” Tamara says, eyes glued to the other side of the room.

Call follows her gaze and finds a girl dressed in a flowing white dress woven with spiraling strips of gold, an elegant straight sheet of slick black hair falling way past her shoulders, and a wicked-looking sword strapped to her back. Kimiya.

“Well, it’s supposed to be a secret to the lower years,” Alex reasons. He explains that these parties go long before he’d even stepped foot inside the Magisterium, held by students with nothing better to do and craving social interaction past arcades and movies in the Gallery. So they created these gatherings - and, so as to keep their secrecy from the Masters and thus expel any fear of expulsion, decreed that they only be exclusive to Silver and Fourth Years.

“We’re only upholding the tradition,” Alex concludes, looking carelessly happy despite the gloom casted by the jack-o-lanterns. “You should be proud. You could be the only younger years to know about this in all of magical Halloween party history.”

“Great,” Aaron says. “The youngest to be expelled, too.”

Alex grins and clamps a hand on his shoulder. “Come on. You ran away to save Mr. Hunt, destroyed the experimentation facility, and essentially brought the Masters to the brink of desperation - all before you were even allowed to go on missions. Do you really think they’d expel you over a harmless party?”

Call’s stomach grumbles. Instinctively eyeing the food on the table, he says, “Well. You guys can stay here and chitchat, but I’m going to eat.” He pauses. “The punch … doesn’t have a punch, right?”

“Who needs alcohol when you have magic?” says Alex with his unwavering grin.

Call shrugs, looks at his best friends. “Good enough for me.”

Pizza and candies have never tasted so good in his _life_. The punch is a bit of a downer once he realizes they’re made from the weird white pears the school grows underground - they really do taste like apple and cheese - but he doesn’t mind too much.

Havoc, well-fed and lazy, gratefully accepts the belly rubs random strangers give him, apparently not minding the claws some of them wear.

Tamara dances with her sister from across the room. Her hair is a mess but she doesn’t look like she cares about it, her limbs moving perfectly in time with the beat. With the gloomy lights and people in ridiculous costumes, their ruffled clothes and dirty faces blend in seamlessly.

“This is _crazy_ ,” Aaron tells him, sweaty from dancing and grinning, a goblet of punch in hand. “I mean, a party! And the Masters don’t even know!”

“Yeah,” says Call. “Another thing that goes right under their noses. Next thing you know, secret scuba diving sessions in the underground rivers.”

“That would be cool,” Aaron says, then laughs. “I’d love to see you screaming at the fish.”

“They’re eyeless and creepy!”

Aaron gives him a look, and it’s so out of the blue and indescribable that Call feels his stomach drop. His eyes are soft and glinting green, open and inviting, but it’s impossible to figure out what’s in his mind. Infuriatingly. “Are you tired?” Aaron asks. “You look tired. Do you want me to walk you to our rooms?”

“I’m not tired. And even if I was, I can walk myself.”

“Are you sure?”

Call nods. “Yeah.”

(His stomach was heavy and full, okay, and he was tired to the bone after a week of irregular, incomplete sleeping patterns, and Havoc was a warm inviting pillow beneath his head - so, all things considered, he couldn’t be blamed if he completely zonked out beneath the long table.

Or if he clung to Aaron a little too tightly, half asleep, as they walked to their rooms with their bodies pressed close, an arm around his waist and his head on his shoulder.

Luckily for Aaron, Call wouldn’t see the suppressed smile on his lips. Not to mention hear Tamara’s incessant giggling.)


End file.
